


Ghosts in the Attic

by RockNoir



Category: Cars (Movies)
Genre: Gift Fic, Kid Logic, a brief mention of lightning mcqueen, sibling relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 22:19:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17692160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RockNoir/pseuds/RockNoir
Summary: Jesse thinks there's ghosts in the attic.It's the only explaination his six-year-old brain can conclude.But Henry knows better.





	Ghosts in the Attic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NurfHurdur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NurfHurdur/gifts).



> I was reading through some old discord messages and got the idea to write this.
> 
> takes place pre-Hard Enough Left (by @nurfhurdur)

There's an occasional scratching sound, followed by a shuffling noise.

Sometimes multiple noises at once, followed by what sounds like muffled whispers.

Jesse can't sleep.

Not with the noises keeping him awake, and certainly not with suspicions of ghosts swimming his 6-year-old mind.

The night before, he'd thought nothing of the noises. He had heard the shuffling several times, and assumed it might've just been the trees, sometimes they rustled weirdly in the wind. Maybe one of the branches was really long and accidentally bumped the side of the house.

But that'd all changed today, earlier in the evening, when he'd tagged along with his father and older brother, Henry, in to town. While in town, they'd ran in to the Jefferson brothers, Keith and Roy, who were equipped with flashlights and a bag, claiming they were on their way to go ghost hunting in a vacant house in the southern bit of the woods.

___________________

Jesse and Henry had sat side-by-side on the curb while their father had stepped inside one of the many small businesses that flanked either side of Thomasville's Main Street. He was only paying a bill, promising his boys not to take long, but in the short time he was away, they'd still managed to uphold a conversation with the Jefferson boys.

They'd been jogging by eagerly, stumbling to a stop when they spotted Henry, to ask if he wanted to tag along.

"We're huntin' ghosts," Keith had said, with a level of confidence in nonsense that only a boy would have. Kieth was Henry's classmate and a close friend, they'd even sat next to each other during class, and when they were outside the classroom, they were most likely passing along a football. Roy was a year older than Kieth, but they were still fairly close, and shared a few friends, Henry being one of them. "We heard from Ricardo, who heard from Timmy, who was told by his brother that the place's haunted. We're gonna go catch us some ghosts!"

"We could always use another guy on our team," Roy said, idly passing his flashlight from hand to hand, "We asked Ricardo to come with us, but he scares too easy. He was too chicken to even consider it! Shook his head before I could even get the whole question out. Timmy said he'd meet us there, too, and you know the more people the better."

As much as Henry had wanted to say yes, despite not believing in ghosts or hauntings of the like, he couldn't. His dad had told him to look after his brother while he went inside, and he was still in the middle of helping his dad do errands. Sure, his dad might've said yes if he'd just ask if he could go with his friends, but where was the honor in that?

He was tasked with looking after his brother, and a task should always be completed thoroughly, according to their father.

"Maybe next time," Henry had said, grinding his shoe over the gravel of the road. "I'm busy."

"You sure?" Roy asked, stilling the torch in his hands, "Ricardo said that Timmy's brother said that we can talk to the ghosts! We wanna try that!"

"And hopefully they don't try to do nothing wicked to us! Else we might have to just fight 'em too!" Keith holds out his own flashlight to Henry, who just shakes his head.

"I'm sure."

The Jefferson brothers shrugged in unison, telling Henry they'd drag him along next time, and jogged off, teasing each other about who'd get eaten by the ghosts first.

"Henry?" Jesse asked, tapping at his older brother's arm to get his attention, "Are ghosts real?"

"No," Henry said, nudging Jesse's hand off of his arm, "there ain't no such thing as ghosts, and anyone you tells you that they're real is lyin' to you."

Jesse hadn't asked about it again, seemingly forgetting.

On their way home, he picked a small yellow flower from the dirt to give to his twin sister, who had stayed behind with their mother while the boys spent their day in town.

___________________________

Jesse hasn't forgotten about the ghosts, though.

The shuffling and incoherent whispers have him spooked, and he can only last so long being awake and alone to bear it all.

All it takes is a heavy thud coming from the ceiling right above his head to send him stumbling out of his bed and over to his sister's, hastily shaking her awake.

As his literal 'other half'—and potential better half at that—his twin sister is always the first one he goes to, should any trouble arise in the span of his very young life.

Not for consultation, but for the mere fact that if she's there, too, he won't have to face it alone.

"Ruth!" He shakes her shoulder, jarring her awake, and she herself is a little freaked out when she opens her eyes and sees her twin's own blue ones right in front of her own.

He's close enough that he could probably count every individual freckle on her face (if he knew how to count that high).

"What's happening?" She asks, slurred from sleep. She's sitting up and just barely avoiding crashing her head in to his own as she pushes him back a little.

"Our house is haunted."

"Haunted?"

Jesse climbs on to the bed beside her, placing his small hand over her mouth. "Shh, listen," he whispers, pointing up toward the ceiling with his other hand.

It's silent for a moment. Then the shuffling noise picks back up again.

"That's not a ghost!" Ruth half-whispers as she pulls his hand away, then proceeds to wipe her mouth with the back of her own hand. Jesse doesn't have the time to be offended in such a dire situation. "What if it's just a tree or it's windy outside?"

"It's a ghost!"

"How do you know?"

"Because...what else would it be?!"

Ruth's silence prompts a 'see? I'm right' look from Jesse.

"It tried talking to me. I heard it!" Jesse says, turning to look up at the ceiling.

"What did it say?"

"I don't know...I couldn't hear it too good."

Ruth, too, looks up, though there's a still a look of disbelief on her face. Or maybe it's sleepiness. Possibly both.

It's silent for a whole minute. Nothing happens. No mysterious and eerie voices are whispering through the walls.

Just as Ruth's about to tell Jesse that there's no ghosts, another loud thud sounds above them, the ceiling fan wobbles just a bit, but it's enough for the twins to notice, and it strikes enough fear in to the both of them to send them running out of their own room and toward Henry's.

Henry'll certainly know what to do. Henry knows everything. (And, Jesse thinks, if a ghost does appear and attempt to eat them, Henry will fight it with his bare hands.)

Now, Henry isn't too keen on being woken up by his younger siblings, but he heard them coming before they even had the chance to startle him awake by jumping on him.

6-year-olds don't really know the meaning of 'quiet'. 

Still, he prefers being woken by footsteps and the sound of his siblings attempting to whisper than being woken by a knee to the gut.

And, as all big brothers should, Henry takes his role as Big Brother seriously. He's ready to protect and defend the both of them in an instant.

Instead, he spends the better half of an hour trying to convince his siblings that ghosts aren't real (and miraculously, no thuds, scratches, or incoherent whispers can be heard when Henry stops to listen for them), until the twins end up falling asleep in his bed, after deeming his room as a ghost-free zone.

He can't move without waking them, so he settles for laying in an uncomfortable position, careful not to kick or nudge either of them off the bed. At least they're still small enough to fit.

 

___________________

"You said the sound came from the ceiling?" Henry asks. He's standing out on the lawn of the backyard, both of his siblings are on the back porch, nodding their heads.

Luckily—and coincidentally—their father had left a ladder leaning against the house. He'd been planning on clearing out the gutters of leaves and twigs that clogged them, and had already set the ladder up. The sun was high in the sky, and would give Henry all the light he needed to examine the roof.

Although he wasn't a fan of heights and would probably get an earful or worse from both of their parents for being on the roof for any reason at all, Henry began his climb, began his journey to prove to his brother that there were no such thing as ghosts.

"He can't go up there all by himself!" Ruth says, watching as her older brother quickly makes his way up the ladder. He keeps his eyes toward the sky to avoid looking down and giving himself a freight. "What if...what if the ghost gets him?"

And that absolutely makes a lot of sense to Jesse.

So he steps forward, "Stay here. I could go with him so he's not alone, but you stay here. And DON'T tell anybody else."

Sometimes Ruth had a habit of letting their secrets slip to their parents.

She's not fond of the idea, but agrees, because she would never climb that ladder, or get on the roof, even if her life depended on it.

________________

Jesse stands behind Henry, on wobbling legs as they slowly make their way toward the hole they discovered in the roof. It's a hole that leads right down to the attic, which just so happens to be above Jesse's room. Go figure.

It also just might be where the ghost could be hiding. 

Henry's armed with a small stick he's picked up that was laying on the roof. It's not much, but it'll buy them a couple of second should they need to escape.

But when they get to the hole in the roof and peer inside, the find that there's nothing to escape from.

"It's not a ghost," Henry says, quietly so only his brother can hear, "it's raccoons."

And, sure enough, two small raccoons lay sleeping, curled up against each other.

Jesse immediately lets the tension dissolve from his small shoulders, relieved that there's no ghost living in their house, ready to get him.

"Can we name them?" He asks, kneeling to get a better look.

"No."

"Why not?"

Henry's already heading back toward the ladder, and Jesse scrambles to keep up with him.

"Raccoons are mean," Henry says, looking at Jesse before he begins his descent, "and their momma might have already gave them a name."

When the make it back to ground, Jesse relays the information that it was only a family of raccoons.

"Did you name them?" Ruth asks, looking between her brothers.

"Henry said we shouldn't name them because their momma probably gave them names already."

It's a good enough answer for her, although she would have liked to see the raccoons, assuming they were cute. But it's not like she wouldn't see more in her lifetime. Thomasville was a heavily wooded area, she'd have more than enough run-ins with the little ring-tailed fiends. 

"I told you ghosts aren't real," Henry says, hands on his hips as he looks down at his siblings.

"But Roy and Keith said—"

"Roy and Kieth don't know nothing about ghosts, or else they'd know that ghosts ain't real."

And Henry must be right, because Henry knows everything.

There has never been a thing that Jesse's big brother didn't know.

____________

Jesse Hudson doesn't believe in ghosts. Ghosts are just simple things you don't know yet, like raccoons in the attic, or obvious lies told by teenagers to spook their little brothers.

Ghosts aren't real.

So why, several decades later, is Jesse sitting in a court room, glaring down an obvious ghost of his past? A ghost that takes the form of a young man with piercing blue eyes and a stupid, cocky grin, much like the one Jesse wore on his own face when he was young and dumb and reckless, and all he cared about was the next time he'd get to race his car through the dirt tracks and beaches of the Piston Cup.

Maybe Henry was wrong. Maybe Henry didn't know everything. Maybe ghosts were real, and maybe they came to you to remind you of some of your biggest regrets.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything in ages. I tried to revise and edit but it's 5 AM and I've been up all night so I don't know how well the revision went.
> 
> find me on Tumblr: @kiwisodaa


End file.
